Sunday, September 26, 2010

Evolution's Strange Dilemma

MVP recently noted that thus far, How to Know God Exists has limited itself to Ray Comfort's "a painting proves a painter, creation proves a Creator" argument, and wonders if Ray has any other arrows in his evidential quiver. I myself think that two arguments can be distinguished here: a "first cause" argument and the classic "design" argument (the two most successful of Aquinas' famous "five ways"), but that pretty much exhausts the inventory of the first six chapters. Even the argument from dead scientists' authority is an argument that they saw design in nature.

But in chapter 7, Ray moves on to a third argument. Humans are widely religious; the overwhelming majority of humans today and historically accept not only that they were designed but that the Designer has (or designers have) a personal interest in them. If, Ray asks, evolution is supposed to have shaped our minds to grasp and deal with reality, why is there such widespread acceptance of Something that atheists insist is not real and has no real evidence? If evolution has shaped our faculties for purposes -- if we hunger because we need food, and food exists, and we feel thirsty because we need water and water exists, and we feel sexual desire because we need sex to reproduce (and it exists), then ought we not consider, indeed embrace, the idea that we (many of us, anyway) feel a need for God because God exists and we really need Him?

This is not quite a "dilemma" in the strict sense (a forced choice between only two alternatives: in this case, either a real God or some single "atheist evolutionist" account of why people wrongly believe in Him), since evolutionists have proposed various explanations for religion. A popular one is "over-attribution of agency" (also known as "hyperactive agent detection" or "faces in the clouds"): we evolved as social animals, ever ready to infer motives and purposes because our fellow hominines had motives and purposes (i.e. are actors or agents), and we ended up attributing motives and purposes even to many things that lacked them, from trees and rivers to the presumed invisible powers that sent rain or caused eclipses. On this view, religion is an epistemic mistake; this view is often supplemented with the view that over time, priests and princes have invoked these invisible agents as supernatural supporters of their own privileges. Conversely, there is the idea that interest in supernatural agents is a side issue, and that religion has direct evolutionary benefits by increasing the chances of reproductive success by those who took part in it (e.g. through enhanced cooperation and mutual support).

Still, it is interesting that creationists who so often marvel that evolution should shape our senses so that we perceive material things accurately (e.g. so that we don't mistake a hungry leopard for a berry bush and approach it for a meal) seem to implicitly assume that it would shape our minds so that we could not make seriously erroneous inferences about nonphysical, supernatural entities -- inferences that won't lead to our immediate deaths if we get them wrong.

Another widespread if not quite universal human trait is a moral sense: a view that some things are good, others bad, and that one should feel (and usually does) feel guilty when one does bad things. Ray notes that even surviving stone-age tribes accept that murder and theft and adultery are bad. Why, he asks, are humans uniquely and (almost) universally moral animals? He argues that without a Creator, we have no basis for absolute morals, so a moral nature is further evidence for a Creator.

This idea needs to be unpacked in some detail, as it conflates several different and questionable assumptions.

First, from an evolutionary point of view, of course, a moral sense is something shaped by natural selection to enable us to live in groups and cooperate for mutual benefit: "good" are things that promote social order and fair play, and "bad" are things that reduce society to a bloody-taloned war of all against all. Ray makes a dubious assertion when he claims that only humans have morality; gorillas have been noted to display compassion and caring, and even monkeys seem to have a sense of fair play.

Note that what makes things "moral," though, is not their selective value, but the fact that we have been shaped to value them: the moral sense itself, not natural selection which presumably shaped it, is the basis of morality. Just as an arctic fox has stubby limbs and white fur because these were selected for heat conservation and camoflage, but doesn't have them because it's trying to conserve heat or avoid detection, so our ancestors didn't show compassion or fair play because they wanted to leave more descendants, but because they felt like doing so -- and these feelings happened, in fact, to promote their survival.

Second, how does a Creator provide a basis for absolute morality? If the Creator somehow built morality directly into the fabric of nature (particularly human nature), then what matters, again, is what human nature is like, not how it became that way: morality exists without reference to an Author of morality. If, rather, morality depends crucially on the Creator's edicts, then what is "absolute" except the Creator's power? This is a pure case of "right makes mightmight makes right:" God's will is good because He can burn you forever for defying it, and for no other reason. Note that "might makes right" is different from "might defends right;" of course, it would be nice to have assurance that Someone is keeping score and that in the end justice will prevail, but "it would be nice" is not, strictly speaking, evidence.

Third, it's not at all clear that creationism or the Bible provides a truly unchanging morality. The Bible has a lot of verses that can be quoted, apparently in context, in support of human slavery (Ray argues in a later chapter that biblical slavery was much more humane than, say, the antebellum American version of it, but in either version you could, e.g. beat a slave legally if you didn't kill him outright while doing it, or sell the children of foreign slaves as you could the offspring of your cattle). The founders of the Protestant Reformation were as convinced as their Catholic contemporaries that it was moral and Christian to use lethal state power to enforce Christian orthodoxy, yet Ray, I think, would not endorse such a position today. In practice, religious morality seems as fluid and malleable as secular morality.

Ray ends the chapter with his classic "good person test:" have you ever lusted after another person in your heart? Then you are an adulterer, and are clearly deserving of eternal torment, even if you don't feel that way. There is some tension between this approach and the earlier argument about universal human moral intuitions: humans don't universally morally intuit that telling one lie, or shoplifting one candy bar, deserve eternal unrelenting pain. If widespread human desires and feelings are evidence of a supernatural realm, they would seem to be equally evidence against Ray's particular view of how that realm works and judges. And if human judgment on these matters can be flawed and unreliable, then why should we assume that people are right when they assume that there must be some supernatural realm that enforces justice?

Perhaps one way to clarify the point that evolution shapes our beliefs for survival (rather than specifically for truth) is to point to other near-universal tendencies of thought which might not survive close examination. For example, until we undergo some process of social correction (and many times even after we do) humans overwhelmingly tend to believe:

That each of us (as an individual) is the most important person in the world;That our children are the most beautiful children in the world;That our clan/nation/language is the most perfect in the world.

And before modern science provided arguments to the contrary, we all believed in a stationary earth. We seem to have evolved with a set of tools for comprehending the world around us, but clearly those tools aren't suited to trickier projects.

I find te oft repeated 'God is where we get our objective morality' comment very tiresome. Christians love redefining words and here they have redefined a subjective opinion (Gods desires and commands) to be somehow 'objective' just because God is doing the opining! Basically what Christians mean when they talk about 'good' and 'bad' is 'whatever God likes or dislikes'.

It still amazes me the 'whole package deal' that Christians buy into when they have their belief. Never have I heard anyine EVER say that they are convinced the Christian God exists (by upbringing or experience or whatever means) but they disapprove of his actions commands. This strikes me as so unlikely until I realise that because their God is made up in their head (using the Christian template) they of course agree with everything He says and ignore/deny/excuse the bits they dislike.

Ray makes a dubious assertion when he claims that only humans have morality; gorillas have been noted to display compassion and caring, and even monkeys seem to have a sense of fair play.

I have never bought into this creationist argument. Let us say, for sake of argument, that humans are the only species with a sense of morality. What does that illustrate? For any extant species there is some behaviour or trait which defines it as unique. So what? Certainly behavioural conduct is more readily interpretable to humans than, say, reproductive strategy, but I really see this as missing the point. As you correctly point out, treatment of others (i.e morality) is a beneficial trait (via natural selection) for hominids. The fact that this isn't found in other groups with different life-histories is simply moot. What, then, is the point? Am I missing something? Is there some Bible quote somewhere which states "man" is the only moral animal?

The fact that this isn't found in other groups with different life-histories is simply moot. What, then, is the point? Am I missing something? Is there some Bible quote somewhere which states "man" is the only moral animal?

The Bible passages that describe "man" as the only true moral animal are Genesis 1:26 (we are created in the image of God), 2:20 (we are different from the other animals), and 3:22 (we know good and evil).

Of course you and Steven are right that animals exhibit "moral" behavior that benefits the group. However, all people, including atheists, see humans as different. First, we all consider child abuse and murder to be objectively wrong for humans (and even if Nazi Germany had won WWII, their values would have been objectively immoral). But is it immoral for a stronger animal to kill a weaker one or for an animal to eat its young? And if animals cannot be called immoral, how can they be called moral?

Second, we consider it objectively moral to treat human life as sacred, but we have no qualms about destroying a nest of baby rats, for example, or an entire population of termites. It is objectively immoral to mistreat an animal, but not to put it to sleep.

The argument from moral law is an argument for the existence of God, because without God there is no reason for objective morality. That is, there is no reason to say that some behavior is objectively more moral that other behavior. Unless there is such a thing as objective morality, why should the values of Nazi Germany be considered morally inferior?

Since there is no reason for an objective moral standard unless there is a Lawgiver who epitomizes goodness, and the objective moral standard does exist, this is an argument for God. And Christianity teaches that the Lawgiver, and therefore the objective moral law, is revealed in Christ.

First, we all consider child abuse and murder to be objectively wrong for humans

Check the label of your shirt. Where was it made? Are you sure no children were abused in its manufacture? If we all consider child labor under inhumane conditions to be abuse why does the United States and the American consumer turn a blind eye to it? Until recently child abuse in the form of physical abuse and exploitation was not considered objectively wrong with humans. Just check out your bible. There are hundreds of other examples of showing that our opinion of how children should be treated has changed over time.

Murder is defined as the unlawful killing of a human being. The trick there is how one defines unlawful or human. Southern Christians redefined the term when they lynched black men. They neither felt it was wrong nor technically unlawful. God ordered lots of people to be killed but since you define anything that God does as morally correct, then bashing babies heads against rocks is not murder.

(and even if Nazi Germany had won WWII, their values would have been objectively immoral). But is it immoral for a stronger animal to kill a weaker one or for an animal to eat its young? And if animals cannot be called immoral, how can they be called moral? Second, we consider it objectively moral to treat human life as sacred, but we have no qualms about destroying a nest of baby rats, for example, or an entire population of termites. It is objectively immoral to mistreat an animal, but not to put it to sleep.

Again, what evidence do you have that it is objectively moral to treat human life as sacred?

When the United States dropped bombs on civilian targets were they treating human life as sacred or were they sacrifcing the lives of innocents to achieve their own goals? Are American lives more sacred than Iraqi lives? Vietnamese, Japanese, German? God set the example when he had no qualms about annihilating all the people and animals in the flood.

The argument from moral law is an argument for the existence of God, because without God there is no reason for objective morality.

There really isn't any objective morality. Here's the thing. Now we say slavery is wrong and slavery was wrong even when people thought it was right. But we did not come to that conclusion from some God given morality. For most of civilization there has been slavery and it was not considered wrong. The Old Testament does not condemn slavery. There is no 11th commandment that states "Thou Shalt Not Own a Human Being". The New Testament does not preach to slave owners to release all slaves. The conviction that owning human beings is immoral came over time after much debate, struggle, and war and it is a recent idea.

That is, there is no reason to say that some behavior is objectively more moral that other behavior. Unless there is such a thing as objective morality, why should the values of Nazi Germany be considered morally inferior?

The Nazis did not think irradicating the Jews was immoral and neither did the Catholic Church for the most part. Pograms and killing Jews had gone on for centuries before the Nazis came into power. Jews considered the Final Solution immoral and why wouldn't they? Most Americans and many other people around the world recognized that Jews were fully human and deserving of life. But many, many people even those raised with Christian values (and maybe especially those raised with Christian values) considered Jews to be subhuman and deserving of their fate. Some still do. The world sits today and condemns genocide as wrong because it has come to the agreement that all people are equally human. But that position is precarious and not universal. Americans once thought Africans were subhuman. Hutu thought Tutsi were cockroaches. Read Martin Luther to find out what Christians thought of Jews. This whole idea that systematically killing people is held as objectively immoral is an illusion. What do you think it would take to cause Americans to start killing Muslims in earnest? One or two more terrorist attacks?

Since there is no reason for an objective moral standard unless there is a Lawgiver who epitomizes goodness, and the objective moral standard does exist, this is an argument for God. And Christianity teaches that the Lawgiver, and therefore the objective moral law, is revealed in Christ.

There are no objective morals. There are ideals that modern people adhere too and that are imperfectly executed.

First I want to make sure we're talking about the same thing. When I say "objective morals" I mean a standard that we appeal to even when we fall short of it. It means that there is a basis for saying that some things are objectively evil and some things objectively good and that some societies are objectively more moral than others.

In fact, even though you claim not to believe in an objective moral law, you act as if you do. If there is no objective morality, who are you to claim that "slavery was wrong even when people thought it was right"? If they thought it was right, and there is no such thing as objective morality, all you can say is that it was right for them and wrong for us. By saying that it was always wrong you are appealing to an objective standard.

The fact that moral standards change over time doesn't mean objective morality doesn't exist. It just means that people justify what they want to do. People who condone child labor probably don't call it child abuse. If you do a survey of whether people think child abuse is wrong, you are probably not going to find anyone who says that it is a perfectly acceptable and even good thing. People will just have different definitions of it. But that doesn't mean that one definition is not better and more humane than another.

Americans once thought Africans were subhuman. Hutu thought Tutsi were cockroaches. Read Martin Luther to find out what Christians thought of Jews.

Martin Luther was not the embodiment of the moral law, nor is any other Christian. Christ is the embodiment of the objective moral law, according to Christianity, and He never treated anyone as subhuman. In fact, He lived in a society where women, children, and foreigners were all considered inferior, and He very conspicuously treated them with respect. To the extent Christians have acted in bigoted and unloving ways over the years, they are not followers of Christ. They are simply being human.

There really isn't any objective morality. Here's the thing. Now we say slavery is wrong and slavery was wrong even when people thought it was right. But we did not come to that conclusion from some God given morality. For most of civilization there has been slavery and it was not considered wrong. The Old Testament does not condemn slavery. There is no 11th commandment that states "Thou Shalt Not Own a Human Being". The New Testament does not preach to slave owners to release all slaves. The conviction that owning human beings is immoral came over time after much debate, struggle, and war and it is a recent idea.

The Law and the Prophets can be summarized by the command to love the Lord with all our hearts, minds, and souls, and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-40). Since most of us would not enjoy being slaves, the practice of slavery goes against the teachings of Christianity. No specific commandment is necessary. In fact, we are not bound by the Ten Commandments; Jesus fulfilled the Law and the Prophets and set a much higher standard for Christians (Matthew 5), but He offers to help us meet it by His Spirit. And it is His words that will judge us on the day of Judgment (John 12:48).

But Christianity really doesn't say much about politics. It is about salvation and personal transformation rather than secular laws. However, you can't deny that the parts of the world that have traditionally been predominantly Christian have the best record of human rights, so the teachings of Christ have influenced secular society.

I take a different approach than Milo. I think there is such a thing as objective morality, but that the notion that it comes from a "moral lawgiver" completely undermines the concept. Moral rules which are established by one person's will are by definition not "objective." You might, at best, conceive of God as an infallible "moral law-pointer," but (for reasons brought up to often to need repeating) I wouldn't think of the Biblical deity as even that.

Homosexual relations are immoral because there is an objective standard that exists regardless what one's opinion on the matter may be.

Show me that objective standard.

I maintain that homosexual relationships are not immoral and never have been. Am I appealing to an objective standard?

Two radically different opinions appealing to the same objective morality. How do you resolve this conflict?

I do believe the concept of right and wrong exists but I have trouble with the word objective. There doesn't seem to anything objective about it. I may be having trouble confusing absolute with objective. You can claim we live in a black and white world but the reality is we operate in shades of gray and that includes Christians who claim that slavery in the bible "really wasn't all that bad" and smashing babies heads was really a blessing.

I don't intend to hijack Steven's blog for this discussion but the fact that humans have ideas of right and wrong does not prove God.

Anette, I am having trouble with your moral calculation:Since most of us would not enjoy being slaves, the practice of slavery goes against the teachings of Christianity.

does it follow that:Since most of us would not enjoy being prisoners, the practice of imprisonment goes against the teachings of Christianity.or,Since most of us would not enjoy having drone aircraft drop bombs on our house, the practice of the US government in Afghanistan and Pakistan goes against the teachings of Christianity.or,Since most of us would not enjoy being refused a marriage license based solely on our sexual preference, the practice of banning gay marriage goes against the teachings of Christianity.or,Since most of us would not enjoy being forced to live in pain, the practice of banning voluntary assisted suicide goes against the teachings of Christianity?

I know these are "gotcha's" but this why I found the moral teachings of the Bible to be a rather weak guide to navigating life's dilemmas. It's really easy to profess the Golden Rule but more difficult to apply it to real life situations.

(Milo, I am going to assume that Steven will chastise us if the hijacking upsets him)

I take a different approach than Milo. I think there is such a thing as objective morality, but that the notion that it comes from a "moral lawgiver" completely undermines the concept. Moral rules which are established by one person's will are by definition not "objective." You might, at best, conceive of God as an infallible "moral law-pointer," but (for reasons brought up to often to need repeating) I wouldn't think of the Biblical deity as even that.

If there's such a thing as objective morality, that means that some people are more moral than others, and that someone is most moral. The theistic position is that God is the most moral and that He is goodness personified. That is, goodness is essential to His nature.

So His commands are not arbitrary; they originate from His authority as our Creator and His nature as goodness personified. Philosopher William Alston said, “If God is essentially good, then there will be nothing arbitrary about his commands; indeed it will be metaphysically necessary that he issue those commands.”

But I'm curious, what basis do you have for objective morality? If morality is just the result of socio-biological evolution, what is objective about it? I recently came across an article about animals that eat their young, and the scientists very matter-of-factly speculated on what the evolutionary basis is for this behavior. But if a human parent hurts his or her children, that is morally wrong. Why?

As for your comments about the biblical God, I am assuming that you mean Yahweh in the OT. Jesus is actually our best idea of what the biblical God is like because He is God, so His nature is just like God's nature (John 1:1, Colossians 2:9, Hebrews 1:3). And He is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8).

The question then is why He seems different in the OT, and I think the answer is twofold: First, in the OT God was head of a theocracy (as the word was originally coined by the historian Flavius Josephus) set in an ancient Near East culture. And a theocracy is a political system. As such it was necessary to make decisions that were a lesser of evils.

Milo brought up war, and if you read Matthew 26:52 you'll see that Jesus was against violence. 1 Cor. 22:8 also indicates that Yahweh hates war. However, sometimes it is a necessary evil. That is, less evil will come from fighting a war than not fighting it. I think most people agree that this was true of WWII. So the gospels show God's true will and nature, while the OT shows God acting in a particular ANE culture, taking human nature into consideration.

Second, the OT is full of typology of Christ and Christian theology. So some of the stranger stories (like Moses talking God out of killing the Israelites) communicate a theological message by illustration. In that particular instance it's about the efficacy of prayer.

If there's such a thing as objective morality, that means that some people are more moral than others, and that someone is most moral.

That depends on which sense of "most" you're using here. There could be one person who is/was more moral than anybody else who ever lived without being "the ultimate" in morality. IOW, the idea of objective morality doesn't require that there be a perfect exemplar of it. Though of course, as you say...

The theistic position is that God is the most moral and that He is goodness personified. That is, goodness is essential to His nature. So His commands are not arbitrary; they originate from His authority as our Creator and His nature as goodness personified.

I don't see the relevance of God's "authority as our Creator." If anyone A) is omniscient on matters of morality, B) wishes all people to be moral, and C) will never deceive us, it follows that this person's moral decrees are perfect and should always be followed. This would be true even if that person did not create us. OTOH, a creator who was not omniscient, benevolent, and incapable of deception would not possess such moral authority.

But I do understand the idea that God's decrees should be followed because God is incapable of erring on matters of morality. I don't understand the idea that morality only exists because God made it. It makes no more sense to me to say "cruelty is wrong because God invented/produced/created a rule which says 'cruelty is wrong'" than it does to say "2+2=4 because God created the multiplication table." I can't conceive of a universe in which cruelty is right, or in which 2+2!=4, so I can't conceive of these "laws" as "things" which can be created.

To put it another way, being an infallible expert on morality (as God is, for theists) does not make you the author of morality, just as being an infallible expert on Shakespeare does not make you the author of King Lear. (And a perfectly working calculator did not invent the multiplication tables.)

But I'm curious, what basis do you have for objective morality?

It's not something I think I can demonstrate; I would start by saying that it's difficult for me to make sense of any conversation about moral issues without presupposing that better or worse moral choices "really exist."

If morality is just the result of socio-biological evolution, what is objective about it?

No, that's not my position. I'd say we appear to have evolved to understand (quite imperfectly) moral rules and moral issues, but those rules themselves did not evolve. Similarly, we appear to have evolved to understand the rules of arithmetic, but those rules themselves did not evolve.

I recently came across an article about animals that eat their young, and the scientists very matter-of-factly speculated on what the evolutionary basis is for this behavior. But if a human parent hurts his or her children, that is morally wrong. Why?

I would start with the traditional answer that only those who can understand the consequences of their actions can act morally or immorally, and the concept of being morally wrong just doesn't apply to those who can't understand it.

The theistic position is that God is the most moral and that He is goodness personified. That is, goodness is essential to His nature. So His commands are not arbitrary; they originate from His authority as our Creator and His nature as goodness personified.

I don't understand the concept of "goodness personified," nor do I see the relevance of God's "authority as our Creator." If anyone is A) omniscient on matters of morality, B) wishes all people to be moral, and C) will never deceive us, it follows that this person's moral decrees are perfect and should always be followed. This would be true even if that person did not create us. OTOH, a creator who was not omniscient, benevolent, and incapable of deception would not possess such moral authority.

But I do understand the idea that God's decrees should be followed because God is incapable of erring on matters of morality. I don't understand the idea that morality only exists because God made it. It makes no more sense to me to say "cruelty is wrong because God invented/produced/created a rule which says 'cruelty is wrong'" than it does to say "2+2=4 because God created the multiplication table." I can't conceive of a universe in which cruelty is right, or in which 2+2!=4, so I can't conceive of these "laws" as "things" which can be created.

To put it another way, being an infallible expert on morality (as God is, for theists) does not make you the author of morality, just as being an infallible expert on Shakespeare does not make you the author of King Lear. (And a perfectly working calculator did not invent the multiplication tables.)

But I'm curious, what basis do you have for objective morality?

It's not something I think I can demonstrate; I would start by saying that it's difficult for me to make sense of any conversation about moral issues without presupposing that better or worse moral choices "really exist."

If morality is just the result of socio-biological evolution, what is objective about it?

No, that's not my position. I'd say we appear to have evolved to understand (quite imperfectly) moral rules and moral issues, but those rules themselves did not evolve. Similarly, we appear to have evolved to understand the rules of arithmetic, but those rules themselves did not evolve.

I maintain that homosexual relationships are not immoral and never have been. Am I appealing to an objective standard?

Yes you are. The fact that people have different moral values doesn't mean that there is no objective moral law. When people disagree on these issues they appeal to a higher standard. That is, they believe that their position meets that standard best. And in the case of politically charged issues like homosexuality, people often feel so strongly about them that they'll demonize the other side. That indicates that there is a moral high ground to take.

1) Killing your husband for his insurance policy.2) Killing your husband because he beats you.3) Killing your husband because he was coming at you with a knife.

When is it objectively wrong to kill your husband? Obviously the first situation is immoral and the third situation is moral. But what about the second situation? The best I can say is that if objective morality exists it is of limited value in helping us make moral judgements.

Anette, I am having trouble with your moral calculation:Since most of us would not enjoy being slaves, the practice of slavery goes against the teachings of Christianity.

does it follow that:Since most of us would not enjoy being prisoners, the practice of imprisonment goes against the teachings of Christianity.or,Since most of us would not enjoy having drone aircraft drop bombs on our house, the practice of the US government in Afghanistan and Pakistan goes against the teachings of Christianity.or,Since most of us would not enjoy being refused a marriage license based solely on our sexual preference, the practice of banning gay marriage goes against the teachings of Christianity.or,Since most of us would not enjoy being forced to live in pain, the practice of banning voluntary assisted suicide goes against the teachings of Christianity?

I know these are "gotcha's" but this why I found the moral teachings of the Bible to be a rather weak guide to navigating life's dilemmas. It's really easy to profess the Golden Rule but more difficult to apply it to real life situations.

I don’t know exactly what a “gotcha” question is, but each time that a person has apologized for asking one I’ve actually considered it a good question, so I guess I don’t consider them bad. In my opinion, there is no question about the Bible that doesn’t have a good and logical answer, even if one is not immediately apparent.

Having said that, I agree that my choice of the word “enjoy” was a poor one (I am fallible, even though the Bible is not), and I realized that as soon as my comment appeared on this blog, but at that point it was too late to change it, so I’m glad you pointed it out.

All of those examples you used pertain to policy decisions, and as I said to Milo, the Bible says very little about politics. However, the effort there is to broadly apply the Golden Rule to everyone. That is, the goal is to maximize the good of society while protecting the rights of individuals. (In the event of gay marriage, the rights of individuals are weighed against the question of whether we should redefine the definition of marriage. Should polygamy between consenting adults be legalized?) As you said, that is not always easy, which is why people disagree about politics.

But slavery, especially the way it was practiced in the US, involved forcing someone to work for free and live in inhumane conditions. This clearly goes against the teachings of Christianity, because one group is exploiting another, and it reinforces bigotry against a group. I realize that Christians used the Bible to justify slavery, but IMO this is an example of interpreting the Bible out of context in such a way that religion becomes more harmful than its absence. The chief enemies of Jesus were religious legalists who “strained out a gnat and swallowed a camel.” He accused them of neglecting the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy, and faithfulness (Matthew 23:23-24).

However, in Matthew 22:37-40, Jesus did not speak to governments, He spoke to His followers. And in order to understand this passage, it has to be carefully unpacked. The first commandment is to love God will all our hearts, souls, and minds. This means that everything we do should glorify Him, so we (Christians) do not have the luxury of acting in ways that discredit Christianity. It also means having a very close relationship with God, being led by His Spirit, and growing in His wisdom. The more closely we walk with Him, the more He reveals to us His mind and gives us the tools to negotiate moral dilemmas with wisdom.

The second commandment involves both our treatment of our neighbor and ourselves. That is, we should act with love toward other people and do what is best for them, but we should also take care of ourselves. Love for others does not mean always giving them what they want (as those of us who have children know), and love for ourselves means denying ourselves things that are harmful.

Even though Matthew 22:37-40 is a summary of the moral law according to the Bible, the New Testament gives detailed instructions on what that means. However, we are not under the law, but under grace, so we are to be led by the Holy Spirit in doing what is right.

I don't see the relevance of God's "authority as our Creator." If anyone A) is omniscient on matters of morality, B) wishes all people to be moral, and C) will never deceive us, it follows that this person's moral decrees are perfect and should always be followed. This would be true even if that person did not create us. OTOH, a creator who was not omniscient, benevolent, and incapable of deception would not possess such moral authority.

The reason why I mentioned God’s authority as our Creator is because some aspects of the objective moral law pertain to human nature and our Creator understands that nature better than anyone. In other words, some things may be harmful to us even though we want to do them. So if God is our Creator, He understands human nature better than anyone, just like Shakespeare understood King Lear better than anyone.

But I do understand the idea that God's decrees should be followed because God is incapable of erring on matters of morality. I don't understand the idea that morality only exists because God made it. It makes no more sense to me to say "cruelty is wrong because God invented/produced/created a rule which says 'cruelty is wrong'" than it does to say "2+2=4 because God created the multiplication table." I can't conceive of a universe in which cruelty is right, or in which 2+2!=4, so I can't conceive of these "laws" as "things" which can be created.

I don’t see morality as something God “made” either. It is an expression of His nature. His nature is love, and sin is the absence of love. I also agree with you that God cannot violate the basic rules of logic, because if He did, His word would not be truth. But since God is eternal, and the Alpha and the Omega, it is nonsensical to ask the question of what came first: truth and objective morality or God.

No, that's not my position. I'd say we appear to have evolved to understand (quite imperfectly) moral rules and moral issues, but those rules themselves did not evolve. Similarly, we appear to have evolved to understand the rules of arithmetic, but those rules themselves did not evolve.

The rules of arithmetic are objective because they clearly correspond to our experience of reality, but where does objective morality come from? Since we understand it imperfectly and often disagree about the details, the objective moral standard is different from the rules of arithmetic, where the answers are very clear. How, when people disagree about morals, do you explain the origin of the objective moral law?

Incidentally, this is related to the argument made by some skeptics that because Christians disagree in their interpretation of the Bible, there is no objectively correct interpretation. If this logic is sound, then Milo is correct that the fact that people disagree about morality means that there is no objective moral law.

1) Killing your husband for his insurance policy.2) Killing your husband because he beats you.3) Killing your husband because he was coming at you with a knife.

When is it objectively wrong to kill your husband? Obviously the first situation is immoral and the third situation is moral. But what about the second situation? The best I can say is that if objective morality exists it is of limited value in helping us make moral judgements.

The Battered Woman Syndrome is not a legal defense in and of itself. So we may feel compassion for a woman who was abused by her husband that doesn't mean that she was justified in killing him.

The objective moral law says that killing is wrong unless there is a clear defense (or if the killing takes place during a war). But it is always at best a necessary evil.

You are right that moral questions can be complex, but that just means that the right decision requires careful thought.

The rules of arithmetic are objective because they clearly correspond to our experience of reality...

I would say that moral rules also correspond to our experience of reality. People are very much alike in their capacity to feel pain, want freedom, hope for happiness, etc; moral rules correspond to these facts. (You should not wantonly cause pain, oppress minorities, deceive and betray, etc.) If they did not correspond to those facts, then the rules would indeed be arbitrary, no matter who decreed them.

Now it is true that moral questions can be more complex than arithmetical ones, but that just means that the right decision requires careful thought. :=)

...but where does objective morality come from?

Like the rules of math and logic, it isn't one of those things that "come from" somewhere. To say that it did is to imply that there was a time when it didn't exist, before it was created/invented/evolved. I think we agree that makes no sense.

Incidentally, this is related to the argument made by some skeptics that because Christians disagree in their interpretation of the Bible, there is no objectively correct interpretation. If this logic is sound, then Milo is correct that the fact that people disagree about morality means that there is no objective moral law.

IMHO this logic is not sound, whether it's applied to to the concept of objectively superior moral reasoning or objectively superior Bible interpretations.

The Battered Woman Syndrome is not a legal defense in and of itself. So we may feel compassion for a woman who was abused by her husband that doesn't mean that she was justified in killing him.

I disagree. A woman can be justified in killing her abusive husband. Incidentally, this has not always been the case under the law. A woman convicted of killing her husband was guilty of murder regardless the circumstances that led to the killing. We have moved away from judging by a black/white standard to a more nuanced approach. Most people think we have changed for the better.

The objective moral law says that killing is wrong unless there is a clear defense (or if the killing takes place during a war). But it is always at best a necessary evil.

Clear defense is subjective. Where does necessary evil fit by the objective standard of right or wrong? It's wrong, but....covers a whole lot of territory.

You are right that moral questions can be complex, but that just means that the right decision requires careful thought.

Jeffrey, are you the same Jeffrey that I have been writing to over at AC? If yes, and want to continue our discussion please click on my name and email me. I find the AC comment section to be frustrating to a sustained conversation.

I recently came across an article about animals that eat their young, and the scientists very matter-of-factly speculated on what the evolutionary basis is for this behavior. But if a human parent hurts his or her children, that is morally wrong. Why?

We haven't always lived in houses in the suburbs. Hunter gathers have lived a life of subsistence for thousands of years. * A child born that was unlikely to make it or when resources were particularly scarce was killed. You could call it a necessary evil but I don't think it was immoral. The parents didn't want to kill their babies but they also did not want their other children to die. When times were lean infanticide was the right thing to do. It makes sense that animals also have a reason for killing their young. I have no idea if our ancestors ate their infants too. If you go back in time about 10,000 years and compare humans to other animals I think you will find they kill their young for much the same reasons- survival.

*Hunter gather tribes have existed and practiced infanticide in modern times not just pre-history. But I am not an anthropologist so feel free to research the subject.

I would say that moral rules also correspond to our experience of reality. People are very much alike in their capacity to feel pain, want freedom, hope for happiness, etc; moral rules correspond to these facts. (You should not wantonly cause pain, oppress minorities, deceive and betray, etc.) If they did not correspond to those facts, then the rules would indeed be arbitrary, no matter who decreed them.

Yesterday there was a huge spider on the ceiling over my bed, and I grabbed a magazine and killed it. Afterwards I felt no qualms about it; in fact, I was relieved that the magazine was handy. What was my motive for killing it? Spiders are disgusting. That spider couldn't hurt me--I just didn't like it.

But some people are disgusting too. Suppose I see a disgusting person, and I pull out a gun and put him out of his misery. Then I go on my merry way, relieved that I had a deadly weapon handy.

What is the objective difference in value between a disgusting spider and a disgusting human? Both are capable of feeling pain. Both have a survival instinct. Why is it objectively wrong to kill the human but not the spider? Isn't that speciesism? And why is that not wrong when sexism and racism is?

Now it is true that moral questions can be more complex than arithmetical ones, but that just means that the right decision requires careful thought. :=)

Ha ha! But in this instance careful thought leaves us with no naturalistic justification for saying that humans objectively have higher worth than others animals. And if you say that they don't have higher worth, then the whole idea of objective morality falls apart because it is not immoral to kill a spider.

What is the objective difference in value between a disgusting spider and a disgusting human? Both are capable of feeling pain.

So far as we can tell, not to nearly the same degree. If you really thought that a spider suffered as much from being crushed as a human being would, then you certainly should not casually crush spiders. I presume you don't casually crush stray dogs which annoy you with their barking.

Both have a survival instinct.

I don't think spiders have hopes and dreams, but I am certain humans do. I would call that an objective difference of a very significant degree. Again, if spiders (and pigs) were really like the ones in Charlotte's Web, I wouldn't casually kill them. Would you?

I disagree. A woman can be justified in killing her abusive husband. Incidentally, this has not always been the case under the law. A woman convicted of killing her husband was guilty of murder regardless the circumstances that led to the killing. We have moved away from judging by a black/white standard to a more nuanced approach. Most people think we have changed for the better.

It depends on the circumstances, but the Battered Woman Syndrome is not an actual legal defense like self-defense or insanity. But the abuse and the state of mind of the defendant will be admitted into evidence so the jury can decide whether she was justified in believing that her husband would kill her or if she was insane, etc. And as you said, that has been argued successfully.

But none of this militates against an objective moral law. All it says is that justice is morally good and mercy is also morally good. The law says that the taking of a human life is very serious so the defenses have to be few and the standard for those defenses has to be high.

Mercy says that such a woman is probably fearful, she probably has very low self-esteem, she has probably been provoked over a long period of time, and she probably feels helpless. To show mercy is to empathize with human weakness.

But although justice and mercy are both objectively good, they are somewhat in conflict and require a balancing act. So the standard is always nuanced, but people disagree on how to balance these two values.

BTW, the purpose of the cross of Christ was to satisfy the requirements of the law and to show mercy to fallen humans. Both were necessary according to the objective moral law.

“What is the objective difference in value between a disgusting spider and a disgusting human? Both are capable of feeling pain.”

So far as we can tell, not to nearly the same degree. If you really thought that a spider suffered as much from being crushed as a human being would, then you certainly should not casually crush spiders. I presume you don't casually crush stray dogs which annoy you with their barking.

I don’t know how much pain a spider feels from being crushed, but that is not the standard used to determine whether it is moral. Do deer, chickens, and other animals we eat feel less pain than humans? I see no reason to think so. And yet most people do not consider it immoral to eat meat. So does this mean that you should not casually eat cheeseburgers?

I don't think spiders have hopes and dreams, but I am certain humans do. I would call that an objective difference of a very significant degree. Again, if spiders (and pigs) were really like the ones in Charlotte's Web, I wouldn't casually kill them. Would you?

So you think that having hopes and dreams should be the standard? Of course I wouldn’t kill Charlotte if she showed up in my house, but that’s because she has a human soul. She doesn’t just have hopes and dreams; she is articulate, she has a well-developed moral compass, she’s unselfish, she’s capable of reasoning, and she’s clearly very well educated. She is more human than many actual humans. She was created in the image of humanity in the same way that the Bible says we were created in the image of God. So all those qualities make Charlotte not just a spider, and it would be terrible to kill her casually.

But that’s just something we know intuitively. Why rational basis do we have for saying that human qualities are inherently more valuable than (normal) spider qualities?

I don’t know how much pain a spider feels from being crushed, but that is not the standard used to determine whether it is moral [to kill them]. Do deer, chickens, and other animals we eat feel less pain than humans? I see no reason to think so. And yet most people do not consider it immoral to eat meat.

But most of us do consider it immoral to kill them inhumanely; we try to kill them as quickly as painlessly as possible. Most of us also consider it immoral to kill them wantonly, just for our amusement, even if we can kill them for food. And I agree that these are good moral rules to follow.

I think it's reasonable to adjust our rules for how we treat other animals according to the degree of thoughts and feelings they have, because the possession of thoughts and feelings is what gives us (and them) the capacity to be helped or harmed by what we do to them. A dog feels emotional distress if it is abandoned, so I think it's wrong to abandon a dog. A snake gives no indication it can feel this, so it doesn't bother me if snake-owners give their snakes away (so long as they don't put them on my plane). But a snake apparently can feel pain, so I think it's wrong to torment them for our enjoyment, or without any good purpose. A jellyfish doesn't feel anything, so we have no moral obligation to it at all.

You could offer counter-arguments to this standard, but I very much doubt you are genuinely puzzled why I would assert anything like this, the way you would be puzzled if I asserted that we have a moral obligation to a chair, to keep it clean and intact, because it stands upright like ourselves. This suggests at least that I am not proposing a standard which is arbitrary or senseless, and I think that's all I need to do for the purpose of this particular discussion. Remember, the point at issue is not whether or not I personally can enunciate a perfect and indisputable set of moral standards, but whether it's reasonable for an atheist like myself to say that such standards exist (even if our attempts to deduce them are imperfect).

Of course I wouldn’t kill Charlotte if she showed up in my house, but that’s because she has a human soul. She doesn’t just have hopes and dreams; she is articulate, she has a well-developed moral compass, she’s unselfish, she’s capable of reasoning, and she’s clearly very well educated. She is more human than many actual humans.

From my point of view, speaking of a soul is simply a poetic way of acknowledging precisely those qualities. So you say "we have moral obligations to those with a soul, and we know they have a soul because they're capable of compassion, reasoning, etc." And I say why not just cut out the middleman, so to speak, and say "we have moral obligations to those who are capable of compassion, reasoning, etc."

To put it another way, I think it's reasonable to say we have moral obligations to a living thing based on the qualities and capacities it has, but I don't see why it's reasonable to say we have those obligations based on how it acquired those qualities and capacities (whether through evolution or special creation).

But most of us do consider it immoral to kill them inhumanely; we try to kill them as quickly as painlessly as possible. Most of us also consider it immoral to kill them wantonly, just for our amusement, even if we can kill them for food. And I agree that these are good moral rules to follow.

Of course it is wrong to torture them and cause them needless pain, but why is it acceptable to kill them at all when it is morally wrong to kill humans?

From my point of view, speaking of a soul is simply a poetic way of acknowledging precisely those qualities.

I was using the word in exactly that sense. Charlotte has human qualities.

To put it another way, I think it's reasonable to say we have moral obligations to a living thing based on the qualities and capacities it has, but I don't see why it's reasonable to say we have those obligations based on how it acquired those qualities and capacities (whether through evolution or special creation).

I don't think evolution versus special creation is the issue here either--God could have created us in His image either way.

Why do we have more moral obligations to living beings with qualities like a moral compass, the ability to reason, etc.? That is, why do those qualities make killing them wrong? I understand what you said about snakes not feeling abandoned and jellyfish not feeling pain, but that doesn't explain why we can put a dog to sleep and not a human. Both would be equally dead.

Also, although I think we intuitively feel that we would owe a high moral duty to a non-human with human qualities (like an alien, for example, or Charlotte), the converse is not true. That is, our moral obligation to other humans does not depend on whether they possess those qualities that most humans share. Some humans are severely mentally disabled and incapable of reasoning, and some are mentally ill and lack a sense of right and wrong, but we still have the same moral obligation toward them as toward other humans. So we owe a higher moral duty to all humans simply by virtue of them being human.

What I'm asking you is why, from the atheistic perspective, qualities like the ability to reason and to know right from wrong make a species special. From the theistic perspective, it is because those are God's qualities, and human lives are sacred because we are like Him. So we can rationally say that creatures with those qualities are inherently more valuable. Why is your intuition correct in that those qualities make us inherently more valuable than other animals?

Of course it is wrong to torture them and cause them needless pain, but why is it acceptable to kill them at all when it is morally wrong to kill humans?

Because they are unlike humans in critical ways. There are many, many situations where we have no problem using a sliding scale of rights and obligations based on whether someone possesses a full set of certain attributes, a partial set of those attributes, or none of them. (An citizen has rights that a non-citizen doesn't, but non-citizens do have some rights; we have obligations to our children that we don't have to strangers, but we do have at least some obligations to strangers; etc.)

I don't think evolution versus special creation is the issue here either--God could have created us in His image either way.

Does this imply that if you became convinced that God did not create us, human beings would instantly become identical to spiders from your perspective, as beings who could be killed with moral impunity?

Why do we have more moral obligations to living beings with qualities like a moral compass, the ability to reason, etc.? That is, why do those qualities make killing them wrong?

This just seems intuitively obvious to me; I do not think I can demonstrate it to those who don't share this intuition. Or the closest I could come is a sort of roundabout version of the golden rule: "if someone is like myself, it doesn't make sense to say they should be treated worse than I'd want to be treated myself."

Of course this is not exactly air-tight logic; there's a notorious difficulty in getting from "is" to "ought". But that's true for theists as well. Do you think you can "prove" that because a dog does feel pain that we should avoid torturing it? I doubt it. At least, I doubt you could do it without some body of shared axioms or intuitions.

Also, although I think we intuitively feel that we would owe a high moral duty to a non-human with human qualities (like an alien, for example, or Charlotte), the converse is not true.... Some humans are severely mentally disabled and incapable of reasoning, and some are mentally ill and lack a sense of right and wrong, but we still have the same moral obligation toward them as toward other humans.

This is not as obvious to me, though I would certainly oppose any attempt to "dispose" of people who are severely mentally incapacitated. This is one of those cases in which I think it's difficult to be confident one is following the right rule. (And I don't think a system which provides clear rules for every situation is inherently superior to one which doesn't, not unless those clear rules are also clearly the right rules.)

What I'm asking you is why, from the atheistic perspective, qualities like the ability to reason and to know right from wrong make a species special. From the theistic perspective, it is because those are God's qualities, and human lives are sacred because we are like Him.

I don't think that can be true, even if God exists. Power is also one of God's qualities, but you don't believe we have greater moral obligations to the powerful than to the helpless. There is apparently something special about our capacity for thoughts and feelings, beyond the fact that it is one of the qualities (theists believe) we share with God.

Maybe off-topic, maybe not... I've conversed with Christians who vigorously denied that "we would owe a high moral duty to a non-human with human qualities." Some have even said to me that if we succeeded in cloning people, the clones would and should have no rights because they were not God's special creation.

Because they are unlike humans in critical ways. There are many, many situations where we have no problem using a sliding scale of rights and obligations based on whether someone possesses a full set of certain attributes, a partial set of those attributes, or none of them. (An citizen has rights that a non-citizen doesn't, but non-citizens do have some rights; we have obligations to our children that we don't have to strangers, but we do have at least some obligations to strangers; etc.)

But you have not established why, if there is no God who created us in His image, these differences are critical. Deer are adorable, they are fast runners, and they never eat foods that clog their arteries; why should those qualities be inherently less valuable than the ability to reason and to know right from wrong?

Does this imply that if you became convinced that God did not create us, human beings would instantly become identical to spiders from your perspective, as beings who could be killed with moral impunity?

Of course not. If I became an atheist tomorrow, my intuition would still tell me that human life is more valuable than an animal's, but I would have a very hard time rationally justifying it.

This just seems intuitively obvious to me; I do not think I can demonstrate it to those who don't share this intuition. Or the closest I could come is a sort of roundabout version of the golden rule: "if someone is like myself, it doesn't make sense to say they should be treated worse than I'd want to be treated myself."

And my explanation is that it's intuitively obvious to you because it has been wired into you by your Creator, whether or not you believe He exists.

Also, your rule doesn't quite work, because it can lead to chauvinism, which is morally wrong. And that brings us back to the question of why speciesism is not wrong when racism and sexism is. And if you think of that rule as the ability to empathize, it is exactly that ability that keeps us from harming animals, since we know that they feel pain and fear just like we do.

Of course this is not exactly air-tight logic; there's a notorious difficulty in getting from "is" to "ought". But that's true for theists as well. Do you think you can "prove" that because a dog does feel pain that we should avoid torturing it? I doubt it. At least, I doubt you could do it without some body of shared axioms or intuitions.

I can certainly prove that from the perspective of Christianity. Keep in mind that we have a Book that tells us how to live:

Proverbs 12:10: "A righteous man has regard for the life of his animal."

In Jonah 4:11, God says: "Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?" (Italics added.)

There are many other passages, including parts that simply tell us to be kind, so the Bible is very clear that we are to be kind to animals. (I probably would have been a better person if I had brought the spider outside even though it was huge and disgusting.)

I don't think that can be true, even if God exists. Power is also one of God's qualities, but you don't believe we have greater moral obligations to the powerful than to the helpless. There is apparently something special about our capacity for thoughts and feelings, beyond the fact that it is one of the qualities (theists believe) we share with God.

The first three chapters of Genesis are probably by far the most theologically dense chapters of the whole Bible. And they tell us that we are like God in knowing good and evil (Genesis 3:22), and we are wiser than the other animals (3:6). But man is also the most powerful animal, and we rule the earth (1:28). If we want to drive animals to extinction and destroy the earth, what's stopping us? Only the moral law, which tells us that is wrong.

These are all human qualities that make us "like God." However, we don't consider humans who are more rational, who have a better sense of right and wrong, or are more powerful to have more rights. All humans, including those who lack those qualities, have the same rights.

Maybe off-topic, maybe not... I've conversed with Christians who vigorously denied that "we would owe a high moral duty to a non-human with human qualities." Some have even said to me that if we succeeded in cloning people, the clones would and should have no rights because they were not God's special creation.

I disagree with that. I think that beyond the fact that the Bible says that we are created in God's image and that sets us apart from the other animals, we also have an intuitive sense that this is true. However, our intuition tells us that non-humans with human qualities should have the same rights, so since the Bible says nothing one way or the other, we should follow it.

As for clones not having the same rights as we do, that seems completely absurd. How can they be less human than we are? Also, what do these Christians mean by "special creation"? All of us who were conceived in the usual way are here in part because of the will of two humans and we developed according to normal biological processes. How does a person become less specially created by God if human will plays an additional role in the form of technology?

The phrase "special creation" is not in the Bible and I think it is misleading because the Bible says that only the universe itself was created from nothing. Everything afterwards came from something even according to an ultra-literal reading of the beginning of Genesis.

Also, if there is a doubt, we should err on the side of giving more, rather than less, rights. (And of course this doesn't address the issue of whether or not cloning is ethical--it only addresses the issue of how we should treat a clone after the fact.)

Milo, I found this quote in the on-line Encyclopedia of Death and Dying (yes, I know that is a weird name):

"Until the fourth century, infanticide was neither illegal nor immoral. Complete parental control of the father over the life of his child was dictated by both early Greek and Roman laws. Patria potestas refers to the power of the Roman father to decide the fate of his child, even before birth. However, if a mother killed her child she would be punished by death."

"Legal sanctions against infanticide were introduced in the fourth century as Christianity infused secular laws. The Roman emperor Constantine, a Christian convert, proclaimed the slaying of a child by the child's father to be a crime. Infanticide was punishable by the death penalty by the end of the fourth century. Around the same time, the Christian emperor Valentinian declared that it was illegal for parents to fail to provide for their offspring. Thus, by the Middle Ages, infanticide was no longer condoned by either church or state in Europe. However, as a result of hard times and a high illegitimacy rate, infanticide was the most common crime in Western Europe from the Middle Ages to the end of the eighteenth century."

So my question to you is: Were the ancient Greeks and Romans justified in giving the fathers the right to kill their children? They lived earlier than the aborigines 1000 years ago and they had not been introduced to the Christian teachings that later shaped their laws.

It seems to me that you are either saying that aborigines who lived 1000 years ago are less than human or that the issue of whether it is moral to kill ones children is a cultural one. Which is it?

Neither. I am saying that the aborigines lived in an enviroment where it was a day to day struggle to survive. Killing infants that could not be supported or who took away from the survival of other members of the tribe was a survival tactic. Greek and Roman practices were not a matter of survival.

So it sounds like you are saying that it is most moral not to kill children at all, but it is acceptable if it is a matter of day to day survival, and it is completely immoral for a father to be able to kill his children at will, is that correct?

I recently came across an article about animals that eat their young, and the scientists very matter-of-factly speculated on what the evolutionary basis is for this behavior. But if a human parent hurts his or her children, that is morally wrong. Why?

Your comment implied that humans are so different from animals that harming one's children was always considered immoral and is in fact always under all circumstances wrong. That assumption is not true.

It is most moral not to kill children and under most circumstances rats don't eat their young either. Animals can actually be very good parents. Is that because of morals too?

Are you being consistent in your standards of what is and isn't "rational proof"? You find my reasoning unsatisfactory because I cannot demonstrate that qualities such as cuteness are "inherently less valuable than the ability to reason and to know right from wrong." And this is true, I can't. But I don't believe you can either, if you hold yourself to the same kind of standard: that is, like myself, you could only convince somebody if they already accepted your axioms.

Suppose we were each attempting to "convert" an ogre. I step up and say "you shouldn't kill and eat people, because they're thinking, feeling beings like yourself." "So what?" the ogre says, and clubs me on the head.

Do you think your chances of avoiding becoming ogre stew are significantly better than mine? Do you think the ogre is being more unreasonable in rejecting your argument than in rejecting mine? From my perspective, that's rather difficult to see.

When I asked if you could prove that it's wrong to cause a dog pain, you answered "I can prove it from the perspective of Christianity." No question, you can. But that's just a particular case of the general rule that we can only hope to make a proof stick for a listener who shares certain axioms with us. A theist of course can always "prove" Moral Rule X if we spot her the premises "God says X" and "Whatever God says is morally right." I can see why that would make a theist feel more confident she was doing the right thing in doing X, but I don't see how this amounts to an "objective" demonstration of X, or how this makes the Christian moral system more rational than mine.

These are all human qualities that make us "like God." However, we don't consider humans who are more rational, who have a better sense of right and wrong, or are more powerful to have more rights. All humans, including those who lack those qualities, have the same rights.

In the part I've bolded, does "lack" mean "possess them in lesser degree" or "not possess them at all"?

If it means "lesser degree," I think it's a good answer ; would you agree it also implies that other animals which possessed these qualities in lesser degree are also morally entitled to a very high degree of consideration from us?

If it means "not possessing them at all," then I can't see it. Suppose I say "dogs are wonderful animals because they're so loyal," and you agree with me that loyalty is an excellent quality. "But," you object, "not all dogs are loyal." "No," I respond, "but they're still dogs, so they're still wonderful." There's something not quite right here, I think you'll agree. Similarly with "Humans are special because they possess these qualities, and even if they lack them they're still special because they're still human." (If this is your argument, which it probably isn't.)

“I recently came across an article about animals that eat their young, and the scientists very matter-of-factly speculated on what the evolutionary basis is for this behavior. But if a human parent hurts his or her children, that is morally wrong. Why?”

Your comment implied that humans are so different from animals that harming one's children was always considered immoral and is in fact always under all circumstances wrong. That assumption is not true.

It is most moral not to kill children and under most circumstances rats don't eat their young either. Animals can actually be very good parents. Is that because of morals too?

My comment implied no such thing. All I said was that scientists talk about it matter-of-factly. And owners of mice will talk matter-of-factly about them eating their young if they hear a loud noise right after giving birth or they are stressed for some other reason.

However, in our conversation about the aborigines, you made a point of stressing that they were justified in killing their children because otherwise none of the children would survive. So because they were humans, this is a discussion about morals. It is not a matter-of-fact discussion about cultural infanticide.

But you seemed to imply that the Greeks and Romans were wrong to allow fathers to kill their children. You have also said that the decision to kill one’s children is not a cultural one. And you have said that it is most moral not to kill one’s children.

So you don’t really believe in moral relativism. If you did, nothing could be less, more, or most moral.

(And, no, I don’t believe that animals are being moral when they are good parents. If they can’t be immoral, they can’t be moral. They are acting according to their instincts.)

Jeffrey, Do you think your chances of avoiding becoming ogre stew are significantly better than mine? Do you think the ogre is being more unreasonable in rejecting your argument than in rejecting mine? From my perspective, that's rather difficult to see.

No, I agree that under those circumstances the ogre would probably club me even more senseless than you for complicating the explanation without making it even a tiny bit more persuasive. But unfortunately your analogy fails because it doesn’t accurately represent what we have been talking about.

Here is a more accurate analogy: Let’s say aliens have abducted us and put us on trial to try to understand the objective moral law. Unless both of us can give cohesive explanations for whether it exists and why, they will kill us and blow up the earth.

Now, these aliens completely lack intuition, they have no biases, and they need rational explanations for everything or they become very angry. And they see nothing morally wrong with blowing up our planet if we fail to give rational explanations because they have no morals.

They find out that we both believe that an objective moral law exists and they want to know why. They also want to know why we consider the rationality and moral compass of humans inherently more valuable than the cuteness and speed of deer, and why we consider it morally acceptable to kill and eat other animals but not humans.

First they cross-examine me. I say that there is an objective moral standard and it exists because of a transcendent, eternal, Creator-Lawgiver who epitomizes goodness. This is why we all fall short of this standard even though we intuitively know it exists. I explain that rationality and the knowledge of good and evil are qualities of this Creator-Lawgiver, and we possess them because we are created in His image. That is why human life is sacred and why killing and eating other humans is morally abhorrent.

The aliens are happy with that explanation for the simple fact that it explains why an objective moral law exists. It is a rational explanation and that is all they care about. We do not need to convert them like we needed to convert the ogre. They don’t even care if we’re right or wrong. They just want a consistent, rational explanation.

Next it’s your turn. You agree that an objective moral standard exists but you don’t know where it came from. You say that rationality and a moral compass are inherently more valuable qualities in a species than cuteness and speed, but you can’t explain why. You say that we cannot kill other humans because they are like us, but you don’t explain why that should matter.

Guess what happens next, Jeffrey. :)

It is very difficult to explain and justify objective morality apart from God. I used the example of Greek and Roman men having the right to kill their children, and women having absolutely no rights. They did not consider that immoral. And yet we don’t look at that and say, “Well, that’s not less moral; it’s just different, like green and blue are different.” We can definitively say that it is less moral and even shocking. But it is not objectively immoral to commit mass insecticide if we have ants in our kitchen.

Atheist philosopher of science Michael Ruse says: "The position of the modern evolutionist is that humans have an awareness of morality because such an awareness is of biological worth. Morality is a biological adaptation, no less than our hands and feet and teeth. Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. I appreciate that when someone says, "love thy neighbor as thyself," they think they are referring above and beyond themselves. Nevertheless such reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction, and any deeper meaning is illusory."

If you were testifying before the aliens that is what you would have to say to save the planet. But then you have no right to say that the laws of the Greeks and Romans with respect to women and children were shockingly immoral. It worked for them and they saw nothing wrong with it. You would have to admit that the objective moral law is an illusion.

When I asked if you could prove that it's wrong to cause a dog pain, you answered "I can prove it from the perspective of Christianity." No question, you can. But that's just a particular case of the general rule that we can only hope to make a proof stick for a listener who shares certain axioms with us. A theist of course can always "prove" Moral Rule X if we spot her the premises "God says X" and "Whatever God says is morally right."

That is not true. We both agree that it is wrong to cause a dog pain because we are both human so the moral law is wired into us. And torturing animals is so clearly wrong that no sane person will argue that it is acceptable to do. So we both consider it an axiom. However, I can take the additional step and say that the Bible tells us to be kind to animals. So for me it is not just an axiom; it is a specific command from God.

Let’s say we disagreed on whether something is moral. Then of course I don’t prove it to you by quoting the Bible. I would prove it to myself, and I would prove that the Bible says what I claim it says, but do not prove or disprove to you that something is moral by quoting the Bible.

”These are all human qualities that make us "like God." However, we don't consider humans who are more rational, who have a better sense of right and wrong, or are more powerful to have more rights. All humans, including those who lack those qualities, have the same rights.”

In the part I've bolded, does "lack" mean "possess them in lesser degree" or "not possess them at all"? If it means "lesser degree," I think it's a good answer ; would you agree it also implies that other animals which possessed these qualities in lesser degree are also morally entitled to a very high degree of consideration from us?

No, I think that humans who actually lack those qualities have the same rights. That is, a severely mentally disabled person should have the same kind of protection that other humans receive.

Don’t you agree that we shouldn’t treat severely disabled humans as animals?

You may ask then how I philosophically justify this, and again the Bible gives the answer in the first three chapters of Genesis. Regardless of whether we consider the literary style literal and historical or more allegorical, it states that all humans belong to the same family. And since we can all trace our ancestry back to one man and one woman it is true that we are all biologically connected.

So although most humans possess rationality and a moral compass to some degree, some do not, and the moral law certainly tells us to take care of the most powerless in our society. This is one of the most important teachings of Jesus, and most of us feel intuitively that it is morally right.

Let’s say aliens have abducted us and put us on trial to try to understand the objective moral law. Unless both of us can give cohesive explanations for whether it exists and why, they will kill us and blow up the earth.

Does "cohesive" simply mean "not self-contradictory"? That's a virtually useless standard, because then one can put together an infinite number of "cohesive" arguments which are internally consistent and syllogistically valid, but whose premises are plainly wrong.

I say that there is an objective moral standard and it exists because of a transcendent, eternal, Creator-Lawgiver who epitomizes goodness....

If the alien does not stop you there and ask what is the force of this "because," then I'd say he's failing in his duty as a genocidal Vulcan.

Your "because" only makes sense on the assumption that an all-good Creator would be a logical source for an objective moral standard. But this is one of the points at issue between us. So you can't, for the purpose of this discussion, have it presupposed as axiomatically true, or as perfectly acceptable to a species which prizes pure logic.

In fact I would say, far from being axiomatically true, it is almost impossible to make sense of. We agree it makes no sense to speak of "creating" morality, but then it is very difficult to describe what exactly is God's relation to the objective moral standard. Is He the catalyst for its formation? The guarantor for its solvency? The gathering of its emanations? I'm not trying to be cute, I really can't seem to imagine the connection between God and morality except in terms of these very dicey metaphors. And I'm sorry to say I don't have complete confidence in your ability to convince Adolf Spock that you have anything better. If he cross-examined you on how God "epitomizing goodness" rationally accounted for an objective moral standard, I think you would have to confess that to "epitomize" something means "to be a perfect example" of it, not to be its source. (Othello may epitomize jealousy, but he doesn't account for its existence.)

[To be continued some time later; it's after midnight here in Bangkok]

Does "cohesive" simply mean "not self-contradictory"? That's a virtually useless standard, because then one can put together an infinite number of "cohesive" arguments which are internally consistent and syllogistically valid, but whose premises are plainly wrong.

That's okay, because remember I said that the aliens doesn't care whether or not the premises are true? I said: "They don’t even care if we’re right or wrong. They just want a consistent, rational explanation." So they're looking for a valid argument where the conclusion follows the premises. And my conclusion follows my premises:

The following is also a valid argument, even though one of the premises is false: If Socrates was a philosopher, then he loved sparkly unicorns. Socrates was a philosopher. Therefore, Socrates loved sparkly unicorns.

The aliens care less about the truth than about the validity of our arguments.

During our discussion, you accepted premise two of my syllogism, but you rejected premise one and the conclusion. However, you did not offer a valid explanation for objective moral values, so you leave Adolf Spock no choice but to annihilate planet Earth.

Now, if Milo and I had been abducted, together we could save humanity. She would set forth the following valid argument for moral relativism: If no societies are more moral than others, then objective moral values don’t exist. No societies are more moral than others. Therefore, objective moral values don’t exist.

The aliens would be pleased with that syllogism; however, they do not let either of us off without intense cross-examination. So they ask Milo: “So you have no problem with the ancient Greeks giving fathers the right to kill their children at will and prohibiting women from speaking in public?” If Milo replied, “Absolutely not!” and she gave logically consistent answers to their other questions, we would be off the hook.

Of course it is not a problem that Milo would have lied because moral relativists would certainly say that lying about one’s true feelings is acceptable under those extreme circumstances. And most moral absolutists would agree.

But the problem is that Milo really does think that it is immoral for a society to give men that kind of power at the expense of women and children. And she would say that it is a less moral society than ours. So although she came through and saved humanity with a valid argument, secretly she feels that premise two of her argument is false.

And this is the problem atheists run into with the argument from moral law. Unlike the genocidal Vulcans, atheists find it axiomatic that love is better than hate, kindness is better than cruelty, and justice and equality are better than injustice and inequality. That’s just the way it is. But they have a very hard time explaining why.

When it comes to moral systems, atheists are are “all over the map.” An atheist can be an emotivist, a quasi-realist, a universal prescriptivist, an error theorist, a relativist, a naturalist, a non-naturalist, a deep ecologist, an egoist, an Objectivist, an atheistic Jain or Buddhist, a situational ethicist, a deontologist, a virtue ethicist, an extropist, an ideal observer theorist, a happiness utilitarian, a preference utilitarian, a humanist, etc.

He goes on to admit that he’s also confused about morality. And he doesn’t mean that he is confused about right and wrong, but he’s confused about why there is such a thing as right and wrong in the first place. The reason for this is because moral absolutists like you can't explain why transcendent morality exists, and moral relativists like Milo turn out to not really believe that morality is relative after all.

Suppose Adolf Spock had come to earth in 5000 BC* and demanded we offer a rational explanation for why the earth didn't fall down. I say “I don't know”, and you say “it is upheld by a great turtle.” And if any inquiries are made as to why the turtle doesn't fall down, you respond by saying either “the turtle is upheld by another turtle, and – to anticipate further objections – it's turtles all the way down,” or else “because it's a transcendent turtle whose nature is never to fall.”

Based on your description of A.S. as a being who wants answers which are rational in form, but doesn't care whether the premises are sound, it seems my answer would inflame his wrath, while yours would appease it. To which I say, “Congratulations, I guess?” Because I can't really see how the ability to satisfy this kind of demand goes anywhere towards establishing that your belief system is really any more rational in the more significant senses of the word.

Actually, I think your answer is even less satisfactory than that of your 5000 BC alter. We do know that things that stand on other things will not fall down, so we can understand the Turtle Theory of Global Stability. But I don't know that moral systems can be created by transcendent beings, or can emanate from transcendent beings, or grow out of the nature of transcendent beings, or.... In fact (as I said in the previous post), I can't make sense of these propositions, nor can I supply any alternative propositions that make better sense of the Theistic Theory of Moral Objectivity.

Unless you can provide some clearer propositions, then, it does your case no good to say “the atheist has no explanation, but the Christian does,” because what the Christian has isn't an explanation, it's a pseudo-explanation (like Turtle Theory, only more mystical). Similarly, it does no good to point out (as you do in quoting from Ruse and Muelhauser) that the atheist is uncertain about the ontology of morals. For if the Christian's certainty is based on arguments whose weakness and/or vagueness the Christian happens not to perceive, then this certainty is not a condition to aspire to.

Regards,Jeffrey

*This is the title of a book by the philosopher Raymond Smullyan; in the title essay he uses this thought experiment about ancient philosophers trying to explain why the earth doesn't fall down to challenge some of the creeds of logical positivism. Highly recommended book.

Suppose Adolf Spock had come to earth in 5000 BC* and demanded we offer a rational explanation for why the earth didn't fall down. I say “I don't know”, and you say “it is upheld by a great turtle.” And if any inquiries are made as to why the turtle doesn't fall down, you respond by saying either “the turtle is upheld by another turtle, and – to anticipate further objections – it's turtles all the way down,” or else “because it's a transcendent turtle whose nature is never to fall.”

To say that turtles hold up the earth is a kind of gap argument in that it is a substitute for scientific knowledge. And it is a foolish gap argument that fails Occam’s Razor. First they have to assume that something material holds up the earth and then they have to assume that it’s a giant turtle. Both of those were wild guesses that turned out to be false.

I definitely don’t believe in giving answers just for the sake of having an answer, but I think you can make the opposite error by falling back on “I don’t know” when there is a logical simple conclusion that also explains many other things that atheists prefer to say “I don’t know” about.

The question of why morality exits is a purely philosophical one, so you can’t compare it to the scientific questions to which theists have traditionally given “God” as an answer to fill the hole in our knowledge. It is unfortunate that they have done that because it has led to mindset among skeptics that says that it is always wiser to reserve judgment than to give “God” as an answer, even when the scientific evidence points to God or the question is a philosophical one.

And that’s why (aside from the fact that I was teasing you) that Adolph Spock gave you such a hard time. The question of why morality exists is a philosophical one so atheists have all the same information that theists—past, present, and future—have. And yet they are “confused about morality” and “all over the map” as Muehlhauser says, with explanations that they admit are not satisfactory, and yet they refuse to accept the answer that actually does explain the existence of a transcendent moral law: God.

And you come very close by admitting that objective morality exists and that morality is not simply a result of evolution or culture. But once you’re at that point, you have to either admit that God exists or fall back on “I don’t know.” And that’s like deciding not to finish a puzzle when you only have a few pieces left.

That is why the argument from moral law is actually a strong one when it is fleshed out. (If objective morality exists, then God exists. Objective morality does exist. Therefore God exists.) If an objective moral law exists, God (an eternal, transcendent Lawgiver who epitomizes goodness) is the only explanation.

Atheist J. L. Mackie said: "Moral properties are most unlikely to have arisen without an all-powerful god to create them."

And atheist ethicist Richard Taylor said: "The concept of moral obligation [is] unintelligible apart from the idea of God. The words remain but their meaning is gone.”

Without God, morality would have to be a human invention or the result of evolution, and the morality of one culture would not be better than that of another.

Actually, I think your answer is even less satisfactory than that of your 5000 BC alter. We do know that things that stand on other things will not fall down, so we can understand the Turtle Theory of Global Stability. But I don't know that moral systems can be created by transcendent beings, or can emanate from transcendent beings, or grow out of the nature of transcendent beings, or.... In fact (as I said in the previous post), I can't make sense of these propositions, nor can I supply any alternative propositions that make better sense of the Theistic Theory of Moral Objectivity.

But we do know that laws come from lawgivers. And if there is some transcendent objective moral law, does it make sense that it just exists without any reason for its existence? Do laws ever exist without a lawgiver and a judge? No, unless you're talking about physical laws, they never do. So if there is a transcendent law that is higher than any human law, there has to be a transcendent Lawgiver and Judge. That is the most logical conclusion.

And if this same Being also explains why there is something rather than nothing, why the universe appears so finely tuned for intelligent life, how everything could have come out of nothing, and the problem of the need for a first cause, then it is by no means an arbitrary explanation like the turtles upholding the Earth. It is a simple explanation in the Occam's Razor sense but it fits philosophically, scientifically, and anthropologically.

In fact I would say, far from being axiomatically true, it is almost impossible to make sense of. We agree it makes no sense to speak of "creating" morality, but then it is very difficult to describe what exactly is God's relation to the objective moral standard.

Since God exists eternally, it makes no sense to ask what came before, goodness or God. God's nature has always been good, and since God is the first cause of everything that began to exist, and goodness did not begin to exist, it is simply an inseparable part of His nature.

However, He acts as a Lawgiver toward us, telling us through our intuition and through divine revelation what is right and what is wrong. But right and wrong are unchangeable and objective.

Atheist J. L. Mackie said: "Moral properties are most unlikely to have arisen without an all-powerful god to create them." And atheist ethicist Richard Taylor said: "The concept of moral obligation [is] unintelligible apart from the idea of God.”

I don't think of morality as a "property" which has "arisen" or been "created." I haven't heard of Taylor and don't know what he has to support his argument, or what is the logic behind your claim that "Without God, morality would have to be a human invention or the result of evolution and the morality of one culture would not be better than that of another." I know that many people think this is self-evident but I honestly don't see it at all.

But we do know that laws come from lawgivers.

But laws in that sense ("Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion") are not at all the kind of "moral law" we are discussing ("It is wrong to cause pain for one's own pleasure"). The first kind can be created or invented by lawgivers, but to say that the second kind can seems to me nonsensical, like saying there is a "lawgiver" for the commutative law of multiplication.

And if there is some transcendent objective moral law, does it make sense that it just exists without any reason for its existence?

Yes, absolutely (pun intended)! If they are among the primary and irreducible facts about the universe we live in, they cannot be a secondary product of somebody or something else's actions or nature. And if they are not among the primary and irreducible facts about the universe we live in, they cannot be considered absolutely true. The same is true, I'd say, of the laws of logic. They can't have a "creator" because that implies they are only dependent or contingent facts, subject to something or somebody's actions or decisions, that it is possible to imagine a universe without them.

Do laws ever exist without a lawgiver and a judge?

I think your mistake here is in thinking of morality in terms of commands instead of in terms of facts. "Don't torment that dog!" is a command, or (if you wish to call it that) a law. "It is wrong to cause pain for one's pleasure" is (you and I would say, though relativists and logical positivists would disagree) a fact. Laws are good laws (you and I would say) to the extent that they are based on true moral facts, as scientific theories are good theories to the extent that they are based on true natural facts. But laws (and theories) do not create facts, and so neither do lawgivers (and theorists). It is therefore a confusion of terms, I would say, to speak of the rightness of compassion and the wrongness of cruelty as "laws" which require a "lawgiver."

“And if there is some transcendent objective moral law, does it make sense that it just exists without any reason for its existence?”

Yes, absolutely (pun intended)! If they are among the primary and irreducible facts about the universe we live in, they cannot be a secondary product of somebody or something else's actions or nature. And if they are not among the primary and irreducible facts about the universe we live in, they cannot be considered absolutely true. The same is true, I'd say, of the laws of logic. They can't have a "creator" because that implies they are only dependent or contingent facts, subject to something or somebody's actions or decisions, that it is possible to imagine a universe without them.

So what you are saying is that the moral law has existed for as long as the universe has existed, but for 99.9% of the history of the universe it had no purpose because intelligent life did not exist?

Of course the laws of logic are axiomatic in that whether or not we exist X cannot be non-X. And arithmetic existed before we were around to appreciate the fact that 1 amoeba plus 1 amoeba equals 2 amoebas. But how did the moral law exist back then? Was it dormant until the first caveman clubbed someone else on the head? If there is nothing and no one outside this universe, in what sense could the objective moral law be said to exist before humanity graced the scene?

I think that logic is truly universal. Arithmetic, however, is only relevant to a physical universe. (The Bible indicates that numbers as we understand them are irrelevant in the eternal, immaterial realm—hence the Trinity, where God is three in one.) And the moral law is axiomatic to us, but not necessarily so. We can conceive of creatures that are rational but lack a moral compass. But we cannot conceive of X ever equaling non-X. It is nonsense.

”But we do know that laws come from lawgivers.”

But laws in that sense ("Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion") are not at all the kind of "moral law" we are discussing ("It is wrong to cause pain for one's own pleasure"). The first kind can be created or invented by lawgivers, but to say that the second kind can seems to me nonsensical, like saying there is a "lawgiver" for the commutative law of multiplication.

Human laws are to human lawgivers like transcendent laws are to:

A) The primordial soupB) A transcendent LawgiverC) Joaquin PhoenixD) The commutative law of multiplication

Hint: D is the wrong answer. :)

The moral law is a lot more like human laws than it is like physical laws or the commutative law of multiplication. Moral failings are a lot more like a breach of the law than like math mistakes.

Laws are good laws (you and I would say) to the extent that they are based on true moral facts, as scientific theories are good theories to the extent that they are based on true natural facts. But laws (and theories) do not create facts, and so neither do lawgivers (and theorists). It is therefore a confusion of terms, I would say, to speak of the rightness of compassion and the wrongness of cruelty as "laws" which require a "lawgiver."

I think that laws are good when they take into account human nature as well as the moral law. But it is a fact about human nature that we are inherently selfish, so the moral law and human nature are in conflict. If the laws are too idealistic, they fail.

And since economic freedom means less economic equality and vice versa, there is no “correct” answer. Freedom, justice, and equality are all considered “good,” but the trick is to balance them. Math, however, always has a correct answer. So I don’t see the moral law as a “fact” in the same way that there are “facts” about math and nature.

Oh, and I just wanted to make sure that you knew that Joaquin Phoenix's psychotic break was a stunt (I don't know if you keep up to date on celebrity shenanigans). I'm not so objectively immoral that I would mock him if his mental illness was real.

Of course... arithmetic existed before we were around to appreciate the fact that 1 amoeba plus 1 amoeba equals 2 amoebas. But how did the moral law exist back then? Was it dormant until the first caveman clubbed someone else on the head?

This would be a problem if we thought of moral law / moral truths / moral facts as objects in space-time; particularly as personified objects which are capable of sleeping and awaking ("dormant"). But neither of us professes to believe this. Neither of us is a pure physicalist who insists that nothing exists but physical objects in space-time.

The problem is that we are used to dealing with objects in space-time and so we fall back on all the customary rules from that mode of thinking, even when we are dealing with "entities" which we (theoretically) place in a different category of existence. "Where was it X years ago?" "How did it get here?" are perfectly reasonable questions to ask of meteors, but not so obviously reasonable to ask of moral truths which are not conceived of as physical.

Ironically, you are willing to abandon physical-world intuitions much more radically than I am, in order to defend your religious beliefs: saying that the doctrine of the Trinity shows that this-worldly number rules don't apply in an eternal, immaterial realm. So, if I say that moral truths aren't like meteors, in having a time of composition and a vector of arrival, while you say that heavenly numbers aren't like earthly numbers, in having a determinate value, which of us has more 'splaining to do?

If there is nothing and no one outside this universe, in what sense could the objective moral law be said to exist before humanity graced the scene?

In what sense does it exist now? As commandments written on stone tablets? As the voice of the angel on our right shoulder counteracting the voice of the devil on our left shoulder? Any time you try to inquire too closely into the precise ontology of something like an abstract truth, you get into a tangle. Best to keep it simple, I'd say: "It is wrong to cause pain for one's own pleasure." I feel pretty certain in asserting this as a truth. I don't feel particularly certain in asserting what floor of existence, and which apartment, this truth resides in, and how long he's been there. If this renders me helpless before the wrath of Adolf Spock, that fact does not unduly disturb me.

Furthermore, I don't think you've really offered a Spock-worthy explanation of the relationship between God's existence and the existence of moral truths. If I asked you the relationship between hydrogen, oxygen and water, you'd say “hydrogen and oxygen combine to form water”; if I asked the relationship between molecular motion and temperature, you'd say “temperature is a measure of average molecular motion”; and the relationship between Charles Dickens and David Copperfield is that “Dickens created that character, and the fictional world he inhabits.” The relationship between God and the set of all moral truths is . . . ?

And the moral law is axiomatic to us, but not necessarily so. We can conceive of creatures that are rational but lack a moral compass. But we cannot conceive of X ever equaling non-X. It is nonsense.

You're saying moral axioms aren't perfectly axiomatic because it's conceivable that there are other rational beings who don't acknowledge them. But then you contrast that with logical axioms, which you claim are perfectly axiomatic because we feel compelled to acknowledge them. That's hardly a consistent logical proof.

But in any case I'm not saying they are "axiomatic" in the sense of being self-evident to all rational beings or even all humans. I said they were axioms, in the sense of being irreducible to any simpler logical components; i.e., you may believe or disbelieve them, but it is futile to seek for a proof of them.

And the moral law is axiomatic to us, but not necessarily so. We can conceive of creatures that are rational but lack a moral compass. But we cannot conceive of X ever equaling non-X. It is nonsense.

You're saying moral axioms aren't perfectly axiomatic because it's conceivable that there are other rational beings who don't acknowledge them. But then you contrast that with logical axioms, which you claim are perfectly axiomatic because we feel compelled to acknowledge them. That's hardly a consistent logical proof.

But in any case I'm not saying they are "axiomatic" in the sense of being self-evident to all rational beings or even all humans. I said they were axioms, in the sense of being irreducible to any simpler logical components; i.e., you may believe or disbelieve them, but it is futile to seek for a proof of them.

Human laws are to human lawgivers like transcendent laws are to [...] transcendent lawgivers.

I don't see the force of this analogy, in part because -- again -- I don't see "cruelty is wrong" as a "law" or even closely analogous to a law. I see it is a moral fact or moral truth. Laws may be issued in order to express the lawgiver's or the community's sense of the significance of such moral facts/truths. (Though sometimes they are issued for other, more pragmatic reasons.) But the laws are not themselves truths, nor do they create them.

Freedom, justice, and equality are all considered “good,” but the trick is to balance them. Math, however, always has a correct answer. So I don’t see the moral law as a “fact” in the same way that there are “facts” about math and nature.

Some mathematical propositions are either true or false, but are not known by us to be the one or the other. (Such as Fermat's last theorem, until recently.) That doesn't make it less of a fact that it is true (if true) or false (if false). Presumably you would say that God knows the right answer. And presumably you would also say that God knows what would be the right way to balance competing goods. But to say that is to say that there is a true answer in both cases (math and ethics) even if human beings may never know for sure that that true answer is. That's "truthy" enough for me.

Regards,Jeffrey

P.S. No worries about Joaquin Phoenix; I don't know enough about him to associate his name with a mental breakdown in the first place.

This would be a problem if we thought of moral law / moral truths / moral facts as objects in space-time; particularly as personified objects which are capable of sleeping and awaking ("dormant"). But neither of us professes to believe this. Neither of us is a pure physicalist who insists that nothing exists but physical objects in space-time.

That was a serious question in spite of the fact that I jokingly expressed it as a personified object capable of sleeping and waking. How do you conceptualize it? In what sense did it exist during the first 99.9% of the history of the universe?

Genesis 3 says that "the knowledge of good and evil" came into the world simultaneously with sin. So it didn't exist in this world before the dawn of man. But the moral law existed in the eternal realm with God.

In what sense does it exist now? As commandments written on stone tablets? As the voice of the angel on our right shoulder counteracting the voice of the devil on our left shoulder? Any time you try to inquire too closely into the precise ontology of something like an abstract truth, you get into a tangle.

The moral law exists within us. Assuming that we are the only intelligent creatures with a moral compass, the moral law does not exist in any other capacity in this universe.

Best to keep it simple, I'd say: "It is wrong to cause pain for one's own pleasure." I feel pretty certain in asserting this as a truth.

Try telling that to a cat playing with a mouse. Explain that it is wrong to cause the mouse such prolonged mental anguish and physical pain just for the cat's enjoyment. It is not an axiom to a cat, nor do we consider a cat immoral for doing it.

Ironically, you are willing to abandon physical-world intuitions much more radically than I am, in order to defend your religious beliefs: saying that the doctrine of the Trinity shows that this-worldly number rules don't apply in an eternal, immaterial realm. So, if I say that moral truths aren't like meteors, in having a time of composition and a vector of arrival, while you say that heavenly numbers aren't like earthly numbers, in having a determinate value, which of us has more 'splaining to do?

I am simply saying that in the same sense that "before" and "after" only make sense in the context of time, numbers in the way we understand them may not be relevant in an immaterial context.

Going back to your example of me 5000 years ago saying that the earth sat on a giant turtle. Suppose I did believe that and you came back in time and tried to explain to me that the earth is not supported on anything physical. It just hangs in space. I would then object that it would fall down. You would explain that the concepts of "up" and "down" only make sense in the context of gravity.

Likewise, I am "abandoning physical-world intuitions" because I'm not talking about a physical world. I'm not doing it "for the sake of my religion." In the same way, morality doesn’t exist apart from beings that have a moral compass.

You're saying moral axioms aren't perfectly axiomatic because it's conceivable that there are other rational beings who don't acknowledge them. But then you contrast that with logical axioms, which you claim are perfectly axiomatic because we feel compelled to acknowledge them. That's hardly a consistent logical proof.

That is not what I’m doing. The moral law is not a true axiom, but the law of non-contradiction is. As I mentioned before, Luke Muehlhauser said that atheists are “all over the map” in their explanation of why morality exists. However, people don’t argue over whether it is really true that X cannot equal non-X. Nor do we devote much time to speculating on why this is true.

In one sense morality is axiomatic to us; when we are accused of doing something wrong we will justify it rather than denying that there is such a thing as right and wrong. But morality is not a true axiom, because people differ greatly on what it is and why it exists. You, Milo, Steven J., and I all have a different understanding of what morality is and where it came from, but we all agree about the law of non-contradiction.

If we encountered a species that did not acknowledge the law of non-contradiction, they would not be rational. But the law of non-contradiction would still be objectively true.

Some mathematical propositions are either true or false, but are not known by us to be the one or the other. (Such as Fermat's last theorem, until recently.) That doesn't make it less of a fact that it is true (if true) or false (if false). Presumably you would say that God knows the right answer. And presumably you would also say that God knows what would be the right way to balance competing goods. But to say that is to say that there is a true answer in both cases (math and ethics) even if human beings may never know for sure that that true answer is. That's "truthy" enough for me.

Often there is no perfect way to balance competing goods that preserves them all, and if no perfect way exists, then it is not even theoretically possible. Freedom is good, but it is in conflict with a number of other values like virtue or equality. I would say that the community of believers described in the book of Acts was a perfect community because they freely shared everything they had, so there were no poor among them. However, Communism dispenses with freedom and discourages productivity because people are not naturally motivated to work for others. So the community in Acts was only perfect because the members were motivated by love for God and others rather than selfishness. Their hearts were changed.

The Bible says that God values freedom (2 Cor. 3:17), so that means that He will not overpower our will in order to save us. Even though He desires all to “be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4), the Bible is clear that that will not happen.

However, in one sense you are right that I do believe that God knows how to perfectly balance these values, and that is what He did on the cross. “Surely His salvation is near to those who fear Him, that glory may dwell in our land. Lovingkindness and truth have met together; Righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth springs from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven” (Psalm 85:9-11).

But as long as sin exists and people are inherently selfish, it is not even theoretically possible. It will become a reality in the “new earth where righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13), but only for those who surrender the will to receive it.

So the answer to your question of whether I think God can perfectly balance competing goods is "yes and no." Most theologians agree that God cannot do that which is truly logically impossible because it leads to absurdity. For example, He cannot be both holy and not holy. He cannot both give us "free will" (it's in quotes because the will is never completely free) and give us no amount of "free will."

Furthermore, I don't think you've really offered a Spock-worthy explanation of the relationship between God's existence and the existence of moral truths. If I asked you the relationship between hydrogen, oxygen and water, you'd say “hydrogen and oxygen combine to form water”; if I asked the relationship between molecular motion and temperature, you'd say “temperature is a measure of average molecular motion”; and the relationship between Charles Dickens and David Copperfield is that “Dickens created that character, and the fictional world he inhabits.” The relationship between God and the set of all moral truths is . . . ?

As I said before, certain concepts only make sense in a particular context. Everything in this universe is in some sense derivative, but that is because we exist in a temporal setting. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.

However, God never began to exist, and His nature is goodness. Therefore, neither God nor goodness had a cause and one cannot be said to precede the other.

Going back to your example of me 5000 years ago saying that the earth sat on a giant turtle. Suppose I did believe that and you came back in time and tried to explain to me that the earth is not supported on anything physical. It just hangs in space. I would then object that it would fall down. You would explain that the concepts of "up" and "down" only make sense in the context of gravity.

That sounded extremely ignorant. I know that gravity causes the earth to orbit the sun. But what I meant is that "up" and "down" are only relevant concepts when we are on a planet. It means nothing in space.

I don’t know if you’re still reading this, but I wanted to reply to your point earlier that the Bible considers it acceptable or even good to smash babies’ heads against rocks.

I think you’re referring to Psalm 137, which is a psalm of lament from when the Israelites were in captivity in Babylon. He refers to their captors as their “tormenters.”

So this psalm is a cry for justice from a people that has been deeply wronged. The phrase “How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones against the rock” does sound shocking but it is a form of hyperbole used in a book of poetry.

The psalms are full of emotional language, acknowledging that this is an important part of our humanity that cannot be denied. In contrast, Proverbs is practical wisdom literature.

Anette, I think pretty much anything I'd have to say in response to your latest messages would essentially be repetitions of what I've said already. So unless you especially want my response to some particular question/challenge, I think I'll just sign out now, and say thanks for an interesting discussion.

Summary of How Ray Comfort Argues that You Can Know God Exists

First Cause argument: the Universe cannot come from nothing, and hence must come from an Intelligent Creator

Design argument: no explanation exists or is possible for the mechanisms of life or the diversity and complexity of living things, except an Intelligent Designer

Argument from general human experience: human beings agree that some things are right and others wrong, that human beings don't live up to their own moral standards, and that human beings want something that can't be found in this world.

Argument from specific Christian experience: True Christians know God personally, and you can too if you believe.

Pascal's Wager: Ten out of ten people die, and most of them don't want to. Let your fear of death humble your pride so that you can believe and repent.

Argument from biblical information: The Bible contains facts about nature and about future events that was not naturally accessible to humans at the time it was written.